Sunday, 26 February 2012

OK, I am just curious. Just how ridiculous do some people want Azerbaijan to look?

You might have remembered that it was a 20th anniversary of Khojaly yesterday. Or you might have been reminded of it, as every Azeri posted something about it on Facebook. Asking for justice, mainly, even though I am not sure what form that justice could take after twenty years. Recognition, maybe. Justice? Not sure.

But it was an awful tragedy. I get it. Children got killed. It is very very very sad.

What i really want to question is- was it SO sad that we just had to rap about it?

Yes, you heard me correctly. We are in mourning. We are so sad that we just must...well, rap. Traditional Azeri way, you know?

We, already famous for our brilliant taste of music (Exhibit 1: Eurovision obsession.Exhibit 2:Thriller flash mob dancing) now want to advance to the new level of uber, mega coolness- a black woman rapping about our national tragedy! Maaan. How frigging cool are we? "Ice cold!" in the words of Outkast.

All the required elements of coolness are present here. Look!

1) It is done in a tasteless style, with a very, very bad acting of a woman in a wheelchair in the background. If you are now going to tell me this is a real victim, then I am sorry. She might be a victim but she should stay away from the acting career. I suspect she is an Azeri actress though.

2) There is a black, Americanskiy rapper singing about Azeris! Maaaan....that must be cool, right?

3) Not only is she black, she is also a woman! I mean, that must look even cooler in the western eyes?! In fact, if she also happens to be a lesbian, we are just soooo now.

4) Some shots of headphones and the studio singing bear wonderful resemblance to that we are the world...we are the children peace song.

5) The tune is catching, if suspiciously similar to one very popular Eminem song. Cant recall the name, but you must recognise if you know it.

Oh, my dear Lord. Honestly. What the......???

Anyway. I have nothing else to say.

Only this.

I guess, I kind of see the thinking behind this awful production. To reach out to the rest of the world. So the world would feel and share our pain. Why we assume that the only language the rest of the world would understand is rap, I have no idea. Watching this video is painfully embarrassing. The occasional documentary shots of real murdered people mixed with the very bad acting is simply bad taste; and, to me, disrespectful of the memory of those who really suffered. Whether intentionally, or not. Let me rap this out for you, so you get it.

It is bad, ma...aa...n bad, bad. I think your clip is tasteless crap.The tragedy is very sad.The clip however...sucks.

On behalf of a few of us, Azeris with some degree of taste (I say some to be fair. I still do some very Azeri things-cant help it) i apologise to the world for this video. Please don't laugh at out tragedy. It was not meant to be funny, it was just paid for by people who have money to fund their cause but sadly, no taste or clue. And then viral marketed by other people with no taste or clue.

I agree to some point.It surely didn't have to be this lady singing..It's quite misleading this way.Secondly, the guys were even worse than the lady.They showed too much gangsta and glamour.I'm not a professional but the camera job was not that good.

It didn't remind me of any of Eminem's songs, although I am familiar with almost all of'em.

I think the thing is not that rap is not the right thing to convey a message.The method is OK, the execution is not good enough. Not touching not deep.

Dear Scary, I always loved your sarcazm and criticism, and I am one of your loyal readers, even though you may not be aware of this. But today I will take a courage not agree with the way you presented this blog. This tragedy has always been sad, but for some reason, this year there were lots of PR works involved (I won't go into details of who started it and where), and of course, when something is done in this scale there will be some mistakes, things done badly. Khojaly is more than this video, and as parents we cannot even think about our children to be exposed to the brutality that children in Khojaly faced. What do you expect, Azeries not to use a social network Facebook for political reasons by posting about how a monstrous Armenian doctor was taking the skin out of 13 years old child who is nailed into the window without anesthesia, and watching how many minutes it would take for "turkish child" to die from bleeding. Then this ex doctor's getting his soul cleared in the church, and more so, openly writing about this in his book??

You know what I loved about this propaganda more than anything? This propaganda even reached our own Azeries, who are so reluctant about their history, even the recent one.

We should forget about this flipping rap, this is not the issue to discuss and concentrate on when talking about Khojaly.

Shafag, I understand the scale of the tragedy and how it makes people feel. However, i dont think making videos that are just awful helps. I think you got annoyed because the topic of khojali is so sensitive.

Baku- Old City

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About Me

Foreign here, foreign there...foreign everywhere.
Born in Baku, Azerbaijan, I then spent 12 years in a wonderful commuter village near London, and recently decided to try an expat lifestyle and relocated to sunny Doha.
Besides this blog, I run a regular culture clash column in AZ Magazine in Baku, Azerbaijan, and freelance for whoever pays me.